The Coordination Center for TLD .RU has attended the 56th ICANN meeting, which just concluded in Helsinki, Finland. The delegation took an active role in the meetings of the main working groups on Internet governance, new policy development and maintaining reliable operation of the Internet.
During the four-day conference, participants addressed key Internet development issues and made a number of important decisions. Of these, two stand out as especially significant, according to observers. One is the extension of ICANN’s agreement with the regional internet registries, AFRINIC, APNIC, ARIN, LACNIC and RIPE, which will see ICANN continue to coordinate and administer the assignment of IP addresses, which is key for the smooth operation of the global network. It is the first such agreement to treat ICANN as a completely independent entity after 10 years of being legally understood in similar agreements as acting under a contract with the US Government.
The second concerns a similar agreement signed this time with the Internet Engineering Task Force, responsible for the development and support of Internet protocols and architecture. The deal also treats ICANN as an independent organization. Together, these documents are important prerequisites for the transition of IANA stewardship from the US Department of Commerce to the internet community. However, the agreements will enter into effect only after this transition takes place.
Coordination Center Director Andrey Vorobyev said this about the decisions: “ICANN should release itself from the control of US Government before the year's end. The stewardship transition plan, developed with the involvement of the global internet community, was approved in Marrakesh. The documents were recently approved by the US Government. The ICANN-US Department of Commerce contract regarding the IANA stewardship ends in late September 2016. By then, a new architecture of internet address governance will have been agreed on, and a new, rather complex model of managing addresses will have been adopted, in which ICANN, while not de-jure an international organization, will work based on the opinions of all stakeholders.”
The Helsinki meeting also discussed approaches to the development of policies for the second stage of the New gTLD program, the first stage of which ends in 2016. So far, 2,000 applications have been considered, and 1,500 domain zones have been created. Russia now has 10 top level domains, including the country-code domains, RU and РФ, and the rest launched under the New gTLD program. Most of the domains are open for all, forming Russia's domain landscape and giving users an opportunity to contribute to the development of the Internet in the country.
According to Andrey Vorobyev, experts did not agree on application review procedures for New gTLD. “Some believe that the policies should be written from scratch, while others contend that only the points that sparked debate during the first implementation of the program should be changed,” Vorobyev said. “There is no bridging the gap just yet, discussions will continue at working groups and at the next ICANN conference, which will be held in India’s Hyderabad in November.”
